Small towns of the Amazon River estuary and their importance for economic flows and social networks

• Grant number: 13/50176-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2013
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Urban and Regional Planning
• Agreement: Belmont Forum
• Principal Investigator: Sandra Maria Fonseca da Costa
• Grantee: Sandra Maria Fonseca da Costa
• Principal researcher abroad: Efi Foufoula Georgiou
• Institution abroad: University of Minnesota (U of M) , United States
• Host Institution: Instituto de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento (IP&D). Universidade do Vale do Paraíba (UNIVAP). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil
• City of the host institution: São José dos Campos
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/07574-8 - Small towns of the Amazon River estuary and their importance for economic flows and social networks, BP.TT

Abstract

The intensification of the urbanization process in Amazon region, verified in the last two decades, caused social-spatial-environmental transformations. One example of these changes is the cities that became important elements inside of the regional space. Predominantly, these cities are small urban agglomerates, with less than twenty thousand inhabitants and they have emancipated recently or have been established many years ago, "they possess weak or no infrastructure, they are highly dependent on public resources, and even though they present a city structure, they lack economic activities characterized as urban" (Oliveira, 2006). Regarding the city of Ponta de Pedras, located on the island of Marajó, there is an importance of this city as connector of economic flows, mainly linked to the açaí as well as it functions as a node in a network of social relations that are established between the urban and river communities. In this sense, this proposal intends to develop a study using a small city however strongly connected to the rural economy and to the regional urban network as well, located in the State of Pará, in the estuarine region of Amazon river: Ponta de Pedras, the second Brazilian municipality in açaí fruit production. This city has been chosen to let us be able to make a study about rural-urban economy interdependence of this municipality and its implications for quality of life and, at the same time, to establish profiles of inhabitants of small city. (AU)